Sunday, March 16, 2008

Beware of Phishing

I got an email from a supposed Paypal requiring me to verify my details.

On the surface it looks pretty decent, a proper header, the use of the trademark signs when necessary, even the hyperlink and the return email address looks pretty legitimate.

BUT!

The biggest tell tale sign that this is a phishing email is that this is not the primary email address I'm using for my Paypal account.

Then I ran my cursor over the seemingly legitimate hyperlink and look at this,It appears that the hyperlink would be redirecting me to some other weird website.

So I ran a check on the full message header to check where the email originated from, and take a look at this,It clearly states that the author of the email is not from Paypal but some other weirdshite organisation.

For pre-emptive measures, I decided also to check with Paypal to doubly make sure that this is phishing even though I'm already 99% sure that it is. So I ran around to check for an email address from Paypal to see if I can check it with them. True enough, Paypal does have a whole range of security measures, and specific departments to handle all sort of phishing complaints. To report phishing emails, just forward the email received to spoof@paypal.com simple as that, and that was what I did.

And their response was pretty quick, not that I think it'd take pretty long for them to decide if they did or did not send out verification emails.But at least it's one less worry off my back.

Usually I don't go to such an extent to report phishings, but Paypal is different because they handle my money, and anything that has a direct relation to me and my money is a pretty serious issue. Over here I'd like to highlight the importance of recognising a phishing email and not fall into the traps of phishing.

Wallau....good stuff. I'm usually very good at computers and online security; but I never thought of checking the message headers for more details. Btw....what web browser r u using? I know this was posted more than 1 year ago, but I'm just curious.

die xxoos der joan

xxoos otherwise known as jal4eva, or more commonly to her friends Joan Ang. xxoos is always in small casings as it means kisses and hugs, or what she'd like it to mean, hugs and kisses and a tongue. die xxoos der joan just means the hugs and kisses of joan.